Until Tuesday morning. As I was putting my pants on to get ready to go to work, I realized they were a little snug. I brushed it off thinking it was a fluke and it didn’t matter as didn’t care for those pants anyway. Then it happened again with a different pair of pants on Wednesday morning – these pants happened to be my favorite. I tried to blow it off again. Then I went to my dietician’s office for my two-week weigh in.

I put on 5 pounds in the last 2 weeks. For someone who started this journey a month ago at 117 and is now at 124.5, that is not a small difference. 7.5 pounds in a month. I panicked.

“What if I keep gaining at that rate?”

“What if I get fat?”

“Maybe I should just stop eating all fats – no more avocados, no more olive oil for cooking, no more nut butter? Maybe that will halt the weight gain.”

“Maybe I should go on a diet. I should definitely skip dinner tonight.”

“Or better yet, I should get off the couch and go to the gym right now.”

Those are the thoughts of my eating disorder. But I refuse to let it define me. So I ate dinner, wrote in my journal, and phoned a friend. “I need help,” I told her. “I’ve gained 5 pounds in the past 2 weeks and I am freaking out right now.”

And bless her; she talked me down from my eating-disorder-fueled near-hysteria. She was the voice of reason, the sympathetic ear, the reality check that I needed that night.

The following day I asked my therapist the same question that I have been asked by students and clients on many occasions: “How can you stop yourself when you’re in the middle of a full-blown panic about your weight?”

She calmly replied, “You did the right thing. Journal to get the emotions out. Talk to a friend to help you get out of that panic mode.” She paused; hands together in prayer pose touching the tip of her nose – her favorite contemplative pose. “Besides, it’s not about the weight, is it?”

What?! I thought. Of course, it’s about the weight – that and my favorite pants not fitting anymore.

Then I realized she was right. It isn’t about the weight. It never really was. It’s about control and ever-changing goals. Your weight is an arbitrary number on a scale. A number that has controlled my life for too long. A number goal that was reached and lowered continually as it was never good enough. I was never perfect enough. And I never would be.

But there is no perfect. Sometimes there isn’t even good enough. There just is. And in the end, it’s not about the weight. It’s about your relationship with food. Your relationship with exercise/movement. And whether you want those relationships to control your life.

I don’t. Not any longer. Am I saying I will never freak out over a number on a scale? No, of course not. This is why many eating disorder specialists offer blind weigh ins so they can avoid the freak outs like I experienced. But I want to know. Because if I can see that number increasing and not freak out, I will feel a sense of accomplishment. That I am beating my eating disorder.

Is that the best way to approach a weight goal – whether gaining or losing? To know what your ‘number’ is? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s the way that’s working for me right now. No, that it might not work for you. You might do better with blind weigh ins. And that’s okay. Do what’s best for you.

I knew my trigger was going to be less about the number on the scale and more about how my clothes fit. I had warned my team about this. But when it happened, even knowing it was coming, I felt ill-prepared.

So what did I do with my now a-little-bit-too-tight favorite pair of size 2 pants? They’re in the laundry basket. I haven’t decided what to do with them yet. If I were advising my own client, I would tell her to give them away. That by keeping them it will only serve as an unhealthy reminder of an unrealistic goal weight. Logically I know I need to do this. But emotionally, I’m not sure I’m ready. So I will wait until they are clean and then decide. Or better yet, maybe I’ll go buy a new favorite pair of pants – in a size 4. That way I can get rid of my size 2s free and clear, with no remorse and no guilt.

When I followed the link to your previous entry "Healing from my eating disorder", I noticed an interesting Freudian slip. You wrote, "Before that I studied ineffective coping skills - like using good and exercise to cope."

"It's not about the weight." That's the most profound sentence in the article. It's never about the weight. It's about that one thing that we can control, regardless of how out of control the rest of life appears. In my practice I have seen hundreds of women protect themselves with layer after layer of body armor to protect against the advances from men, as a passive-aggressive response to an intimidating partner, and for myriad reasons. And it goes back to that one statement: "It's not about the weight."
Thanks for this article.

When I read this article, I thought "that's me!". That's what I think. All the time. I'm so tired of it. I have a therapist but I'm not sure she fully understands how bad it is. For me it's definitely the way the clothes fit. Is it really not about the weight? I don't understand it myself. Yes, it's about control. Yes it's about not being good enough, ever. It's about my failures and my past. "You've experienced a lot of loss and trauma.", my therapist reminds me often. So now what? What do I do now? How do I stop myself from obsessing? I've put on weight recently and I don't know how much. I stopped weighing myself and the thought scares me because I know it's a lot. The worst part of this all is that I am trying to conceive with my husband and I know this has to stop. I just want to find my new normal with food and exercise and I just can't seem to find it. Part of it is stress and the stress in my head too-probably mostly. But how do I stop? Am I really just to journal and call my friends and see my therapist till it's over? Help me. Advice very much appreciated.

Your statement, "I need help. I'm so tired," are more than a plea for help; they are affirmations of exactly what you DON'T WANT. If you follow my logic for just a moment, see if those words are words of empowerment or of victimizaion? There is no judgement here, I simply am asking how does it feel to say or think those words? In my estimation, the words are not empowering, and it appears that what you DO want is to BE empowered.
Because you have a therapist, I am reluctant to say too much, even though you clearly say, "Help me. Advice very much appreciated." What I am willing to say is that your life will transform when you begin with self-awareness. How aware of YOU, are you? In other words, do you hear the power/disenfranchisement of your self-talk? Now because I do not know you, I have no way of knowing if you are holding onto some body armor in a psychological attempt to protect you from the advances of others. I do know that it is common to pile on layers of fat when any sort of abuse has taken place. In this case, forgiving the abuser and more especially, forgiving YOU is paramount to achieving the optimal health conditions, both in weight and emotional sense. When I say forgive, I do not imply a pass for anything which may have happened. It is simply important to let go of anything we hold onto that is not in our best interest. My guess is two-fold in this case: 1. Stop trying to LOSE weight, and instead begin the process of self-love. When you "lose" something, your mind goes on the hunt to find it, so trying to "lose weight" is a mis-placed process. It's better to strive FOR something; in this case, optimal health and well being. When you are self-loving enough to YOU, you won't need to hold onto the pains, the layers, or the flab. When you honor your SELF, you will simply honor yourself enough to do what's best for the WHOLE of you, mind, body, spirit, emotions. It only sounds cliche that self-love is the answer. The truth is, self-love IS always the answer. I hope you will begin to cultivate self-awareness and really hear and see and feel the ways in which you are holding onto the armor and weight. WITHOUT JUDGEMENT, start to release any old messages that don't support you FULLY. And when you feel the fear, allow it to pass by, and do something really nice for you. As you develop the new habit of being good to you, if you're paying attention, you will see benefits in EVERY area of your life.

Thank you for your reply. I don't feel judgement from you and I understand the concept you are speaking of. As you might have guessed, I have suffered through a lot of abuse, loss and trauma. I sometimes get sideswiped by heavy duty emotions. During those times (like when I posted earlier today) I feel very little control of myself and it is so difficult to bring myself to a place of positive affirmation. I'm not sure why old horrible thoughts haunt me each new day but each day lately has been a huge struggle and a fight. I have also suffered a more recent loss which I believe is the one that I am having the hardest time "letting go" of. I think a return to journaling will help me and probably returning to yoga now that I am physically able to return to it. I think it will help with my crazy wild-horses-type thoughts. I appreciate your reply. It helped shed some light on some things that were in the dark.

Hi 'Anonymous'. It's nice to read your reply. I wonder if you took a moment to read it as if someone else wrote it, if you would see anything 'pop' out. What I think you might see is a handful of negative affirmations beginning with, "I have suffered..." and "I get sideswiped..." "I feel very little control...." "It is so difficult...." "Lately has been such a...." "Horrible thoughts haunt me...." "I am having the hardest time letting go...."
You may or may not notice the negative affirmations more as a third-person reading this paragraph. In my estimation, self-awareness is the place where change and positive transformation take root. And with that said, it need not take a lot of pain to make change. Once the appreciations for any event can be seen -regardless of how nefarious the event was, then we can see what we get for holding onto the emotional attachment. And make no mistake, there is a payoff or we would not invest the energy in holding onto the pain or memories as we have perceive the event. As for shedding the light, well thank yourself often for bringing the parts of you into the light. It's much easier to see in the light than it is to see in the darkness. Stay in your light as much as possible and enjoy the day. I wonder what would happen if for each negative affirmation, you redirected each statement into a positive affirmation. And I wonder what will happen if you became ultra acutely self-aware of all the words you form in your head.... I wonder what shift would take place if you fell in love with you and forgave yourself without judgements.... And finally, YOGA YES! The human organism is meant to be in balance, and when the mental/emotional portion is overwhelming, balance your whole 'self' with physical activity; and conversely, if you are physically out of balance, do some positive emotional activity such as journaling. You've got this!